


After The Fall

by MomoPeachfuz



Category: Buttercup's Baby - Simon Morgenstern, Princess Bride (1987), The Princess Bride - William Goldman
Genre: Dread Pirate Dad, F/M, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Mama Bear Buttercup, Serious Injuries, rhymes that will make you cry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomoPeachfuz/pseuds/MomoPeachfuz
Summary: Fezzik clings to life after falling over the cliff in this tale that picks up seconds after the events of Buttercup's Baby. Inigo's first instinct is to avenge his friend, but is that what Fezzik needs? Buttercup and Westley struggle to keep their little family safe and together, and Waverly must learn to be brave without her "Shade" at her side.





	1. Ch1

“Waverly is in danger” Buttercup said, matter-of-factly. She ran. Her dress caught on the scrub and the rocks, but it didn't hold her back. The train tore away, freeing her legs. And for all his years of training, honing his body at sea, climbing rigging, fencing, and exercise, Westley fell behind her. There have been stories throughout history of mothers who were seized with strength to lift great fallen oaks off their children, women who had never lifted a weapon in their lives fighting off wild boars. Buttercup's feat of speed and strength would not rank among the top ten, but her fury and fear and knowing her daughter was in danger was as fierce as any of these. And it would be enough.

Buttercup had not seen the madman take Waverly. She and Westley had been taking a stroll further inland. But she had Known. She had known, sure as she knew her own position in space, that her feet stood on the ground, that there was breath in her lungs, that her little girl was in danger. She knew that Waverly was with Fezzik, and that Fezzik knew Waverly's fears before the girl did, knew how to sooth her better than anyone else. She knew also beyond a doubt, that the mighty Turk would do whatever it took to protect her, even at the risk of his own life. And now, if there was something out there, something on their little island strong enough to threaten her, despite all Fezzik's strength and devoted care...

She ran. Without an explanation, without a word, she took off for their cottage. It took only a moment to determine that it was empty, and in that time, Westley registered the unfamiliar pair of footprints in the dust. They were not his, the feet were too wide, and the stride was too heavy to belong to Inigo who walked with the lightness of a fencer. He saw Fezzik's footprints, and Waverly's little ones, leading toward the place where he stood. They disappeared where Fezzik must have lifted her up. He had been facing the new footprints...where the intruder had stood.

“They went towards the cliffs,” Westley said. His sword leaned against the porch and he grabbed it. Buttercup did not wait but took off running. The shear rise loomed before her and Buttercup did not hesitate. Once, years ago, she had buried her face in Fezzik's shirt as he hauled her up the Cliffs of Insanity, eyes squeezed shut as the ground fell away. But that fear was gone now as she grabbed for han holds. She pulled herself onto a ledge when she heard the crash. It came from the side of the cliffs facing the ocean. The ledge Buttercup stood on wrapped around the rock face for a few dozen meters and Buttercup followed it. Above it there was a larger flat area. A fallen tree hung over the side Buttercup reached up and grabbed a branch about as thick around as her arm. Buttercup used the branch for support as she scrambled up the rocks. Nearing the top, she grabbed a root. It crumpled in her hands and she slid back, but not before catching another root. It cracked and threatened to snap off as well.

“No you don't!” she ordered, and the root held. Buttercup felt something lifting her feet. It was her Westley. He grabbed her legs and hoisted her up. It was enough to get her over the ledge. She did not reach down for Westley or spare him a second glance but took off around the bend. That was when she heard the wails.

“Shade!” she heard Waverly shout. It came from the same direction of the crash, growing louder as Buttercup rounded the corner overlooking the beach. On the sand below, she saw the giant's body, sprawled at impossible angles. One arm was clutched to his chest, and In it, Waverly sobbed.

Buttercup sat down hard, and in a very undignified, unprincessly way, slid down the rockface on her bottom. Her dress would be in rags, which would be a pity, not so much in Buttercup’s mind because it was one of the few lovely things she had brought with her to America, but because she was sure that bandages would be needed.

“Shade, wake up. Wake up. I don't like this game any more!” Waverly sobbed.

Fezzik groaned and his eyes flickered. “Keed...” he whispered. Buttercup slid to her knees and tried to untangle her red-faced daughter from the giant's grip. But Fezzik wouldn't let go, Waverly clutched his shirt with her little fists.

“It's alright, Fezzik,” Buttercup said softly. “She's safe. You did so well. You saved her. You can let go now.”

Fezzik seemed to understand, because when Buttercup placed her hands on his arm, he let it fall aside. Waverly scrambled into her mother's arms, shaking.

“The man had me. I woke up and he was running. And Shade was right behind us. And he said he was going to hurt Shade...he was going to breath fire and burn him and change shape. But Shade didn't care and then the man threw me over the cliff...but I wasn't scared because he caught me but we kept falling and...”

“Hush,” said Buttercup. “It's allright. Mamma has you, both of you. He can't hurt you. And when your father finds the man who did this, he'll never hurt anyone again. You're safe, baby. Hush.” She rocked back and forth, clutching the little girl to her chest, stroking her hair and wiping the tears from her storm-grey eyes.

Then, from down the shore sounded a scream of rage and anguish, so violent that Buttercup thought for sure it must be the monster come to finish the job. But no, it was Inigo. The Spaniard dashed across the sand and threw himself to the ground beside Fezzik.

“Fezzik, Fezzik, who did this to you,” he shook the giant's shoulder. Fezzik groaned pitifully.

“Inigo...Inigo.”

“It's alright my friend, yes? You walk this off. We'll find them.”

“My legs. Inigo...I'm trying but they won't listen.”

“Your arms then, your arms never fail you. Just push yourself up. ”

“They aren't listening either. Maybe if you help me, take my arm.”  
Inigo looked down. Without realizing it, he had already placed his hand in Fezzik's. It seemed small, like the hand of a child in comparison. A small child who was feeling more and more helpless by the second. Fezzik's hand did not move. No fingers closed around his.

“Please, Inigo, take my arm. Help me.”

Above them, they heard a cry, half human, half keen of a bird of prey. They looked up in time to see a human form leap off a cliff and transform into a tremendous vulture. It circled overhead once, blowing fire back at the cliff face. 

Above, they saw Westley, sword drawn dodge behind a bolder. He leaped out when the fire abated, long enough to hurl a dagger at the creature. The bird swerved as the blade struck his tail feathers. But the creature sped off toward the horizon.

Inigo lept to his feat, sword drawn and screamed “Come back, coward! Make your stand here, or else know that you will be tracked to the ends of the earth! You will get no rest!”

“Inigo...” Fezzik moaned..

“We need to get him to the house,” said Buttercup.

“You'll be avenged my friend. I swear it.”

“Shut up!” ordered Buttercup. “We need to figure out how to move him.”

It seemed Westley had already done so. When he finally arrived, he was hauling the front door of their cottage behind him, bound with three strong ropes. He found some long, narrow pieces of Driftwood and producing a few nails, hammered them into the bottom like the rails on a sled.

“How is he?” he asked as he worked.

“He's paralyzed, I think.” said Buttercup.

“I thought as much. I fall like that would break even a giant's spine. His left hand is smashed. He must have grabbed the rock face, or punched into it on the way down to slow the fall. We'll have to move him carefully.”

“We will lift him,” said Buttercup. “Inigo, you slide the door under him when we do.

“But my dear, we couldn't possibly...”

“We will and we must.” she said. And it seemed that the burst of strength that allowed her to scale the cliff face had not yet left her, for the three of them got him onto the makeshift sledge. Westley placed Waverly at the top by his head.

“You've been so brave, love,” he told her, “And now you need to keep being brave, just for a little longer. No tears now. This is very important. You need to keep Uncle Fezzik's neck still. Don't let his head move either. Captain's orders.”

Waverly nodded and placed her hands on either side of Fezzik's head. The makeshift sled moved over the sand smoothly enough. She knew by the stern expression on the grown-ups faces that this was no game her uncle was playing. She didn't know what 'paralyzed' meant, only that when a few of those forbidden tears escaped her, he couldn't wipe them away like he usually did, or ruffle her hair, covering her whole head with one massive, gentle hand.

“I'm scared,” she whispered into his ear so that the other adults couldn't hear her.

“The song, Keed. Remember your song.”

It was one of their special rhymes. They had written it together on the crossing to America. There had been a storm overhead, and the very boards and bolts of the ship rattled with each crash of thunder. Fezzik thought for sure that lightning would hit the mast or that the ship would shatter from the very echo of the thunder. Had he been alone, he'd have been in tears at the thought of the dark water lashing against the hull, waiting to swallow him up. But Waverley was sitting on his knee, her ears covered with his massive hands to block out the crash and roar of the storm. So instead he made rhymes, and his rhymes became a song. They'd sung it before blowing out her candle on dark, windy nights, and after she made Inigo tell them ghost stories, and the night when the bear got into the barn and almost ate the horses.

“Remember your song,” he repeated.

“Waverly is brave...” she sniffled

“She'll never be a slave...” said Fezzik,

“To fear, frights or boogy men.  
Waverly is brave  
She'll never be afraid  
She'll tough it out to the end”

“When monsters come to call...” Buttercup joined in.

“She'll beat them one and all  
She'll never say die or quit,  
Oh, Waverly is brave  
She'll never be afraid  
She's got a giant spirit.”

“Good Keed...good.” Fezzik's eyes grew heavy. He tried to keep them open, but it seemed they didn't want to listen either.


	2. CH2

It had been easier to get Fezzik’s mattress downstairs than to get him up to the room he and Inigo shared on the second floor, so they hauled it down and laid it by the fire. Fezzik did not wake when they lifted him, nor while they did their best to splint his many broken bones and bandage the hand he’d used to slow their fall.

Inigo Montoya was at a loss. He had fought a hundred battles at Fezzik’s side. He knew every single one of the giant’s many phobias, knew his weak points and strengths, knew how to spur him forward, encourage him, distract him. Sometimes it just took a rhyme and a kind word, knowing someone was fighting at his back and would forgive him if he failed.

Failure, he knew, was what the giant feared the most--or rather losing the people he cared about because he failed. Was that why the idiot jumped? For fear of losing Waverly, or being blamed for her death and losing the love of the family he’d become a part of? Or had he been fool enough to think he could survive shielding her with his body? No, Fezzik would have known. He’d have known and jumped anyway because that was the sort of person he was: foolish and selfless.

“Inigo,” the giant muttered in his sleep. Westley had given him some sort of drug that numbed the pain, and helped seal any internal wounds. Despite it, Fezzik developed a fever and though they gave him more medicine to bring it down and surrounded him with cool, damp cloths, he muttered in his sleep and the fever would not abate.

“I’m here, Fezzik. I’m right here my friend.” He’d hardly left the giant’s side since they got him to the cottage. But Inigo was not like Fezzik. He had no nurturing touch. Fezzik had always been the first to step in when any of them were sick. He thought back to those nights in the Thieves’ Forest when Fezzik nursed him back to health, and the weeks aboard the Revenge that he’d spent recovering from his duel with Rougen. Fezzik was one of those rare men who would cradle another grown man in his arms, feed him like a baby, and tuck him into bed without realizing--or perhaps without caring--that anyone might think him unmanly for it. It was also rare because he was one of the few people large enough to cradle a grown man in his arms. But Fezzik cared about people. All Inigo ever had to say was “Fezzik, I need you,” and he was there. They’d stormed castles together, fought wolves and mobs, carried out Vezzini’s schemes together. Inigo would say “Fezzik, I need you” and Fezzik would say “Okay Inigo,” and it would be done.

“Inigo...where are you?” Fezzik mumbled, his hair damp, “Help me…”

“I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do. I cannot help you with my sword. I am not a man of medicine or strategy. I was too late to save you when I could have.” The Spaniard bent over and pressed his forehead against his friend’s. “Forgive me. I know only how to do one thing. So that is what I must do.”

 

Upstairs, Westley washed the sand from his daughter’s hair and checked her body for bruises as he helped her into her nightgown.

“You did well today, darling, as well as any man I’ve sailed with.”

“Daddy,” her voice wavered.

“You’re back home with me now, sweetheart. The adventure’s over. And the one place any good sailor is always allowed to cry is when she is home and her daddy is holding her.”

Waverly sniffled and nodded and Westley gave her his handkerchief. She looked up at him with blue-grey eyes that matched his own and her mother’s determined chin.

“You can fix him, right? He’s gonna be okay.”

“My darling, I came back from being mostly dead. Fezzik is still very much alive and fighting.” He sat Waverly on her bed. “You’re uncle is the strongest man on earth. Do you think a little tumble could stop him?”

Waverly shook her head.

“That’s right. Now, under those blankets, sailor. It’s past ship’s curfew.”

Waverly was too tired to protest. If her father said everything would be all right, then would. He was the Dread Pirate Roberts after all, Lord of the Seven Seas. He’d beaten the world's finest mind in a battle of wits, and as far as Waverly was concerned, knew all the mysteries of life and love and the wide world. That was enough for her. But before he left, she asked if she could keep her candle lit, just for tonight, and her wooden sword tucked under her pillow, just in case.

“As you wish,” he told her, and kissed her forehead as he tucked her under the covers.

Westley happened to glance out the window as he stood up, in time to see a figure on horseback ride out of the stable, silhouetted by the setting sun except for the magnificent six-fingered sword that gleamed at his side.  


 

Pursuit was what Inigo did best, next to fencing, so the pursue he did. They had brought two plow horses with them to the New World, as well as a mare and her mate. The mare, with her dun coat and brown, doe-eyes was Buttercup’s joy and she loved ranging up and down the countryside. It’s temperament was sweet enough that they trusted her with little Waverly.

The stallion was another matter. He had a temper, and Inigo suspected, was not as broken to the saddle as the man who sold him claimed. He was fierce and stubborn and had a few rough scars on right flank. Inigo imagined the stallion remembered exactly who gave him those scars, though it seemed on some days that the horse considered any human a fit surrogate for his rage. He tried to take a bite out of Inigo’s arm and missed by a narrow margin.

“I have no time for that today, you.” he told the horse. He flung the blanket and saddle over the stallion’s back. “You’ll have to put that fire towards a more noble purpose now. Tonight, we avenge my friend!”

This was easier said than done, thought Inigo as he mounted up. It had taken twenty years to find Count Rougen, though much of that time had been spent training. He would not wait this time. He would find the creature that hurt Fezzik, whether he was ready or not, whether he knew all he needed to defeat it or not. He silenced the part of his mind that whispered Fezzik may not have 20 years.

He headed north along the coast, in the direction the creature had flown. It was too much to hope that he could spot it’s tracks, if it landed long enough to make them, in the fading twilight. But there was a settlement to the north. Perhaps they had seen the horror fly over, or even knew what manner of beast was.


	3. Ch 3

Like all children, Waverly had a bizarre curiosity about the story of how she was born, and on her third birthday had asked how it had happened. It was an especially good story, how her mother had labored for almost three days and they thought her lost until Fezzik, possessed with some kind of miraculous spirit, performed a full caesarean section, delivering Waverly and gently untangled the cord from her neck before sewing her mother back up with stitches so precise that they barely left a scar

They had all exchanged theories about the 'invader' as Fezzik called it. Inigo had put forth the idea of an angel. Westley thought it might be some sort of Turkish Djinn. But Buttercup had her own ideas. Waverly was one part her and one part Westley, the penultimate expression of their true love. In her was every vow they had ever made to each other, ever hope for their future together. Yet in the final hours of labor, those vows were on the verge of breaking. They swore never to leave each other, to outlive one another, to never be parted even by death. And Buttercup had absolute faith in this.

 

Westley once spoke of the the Lord of Permanent Affection, some nebulous protector of true love that she’d been quite sure he made up at the time. He claimed it was this Lord that gave him will to live when the effect of Miracle Max’s pill wore off. Buttercup hadn't been so sure she believed in any such being, but Fezzik's possession or invasion, or stroke of divine medical genius or what have you, had gone a long way toward convincing her.

He'd saved her life that night. That made it the third time—the first being the time he pulled her out of the reach of the shrieking eels and the second being the night he helped rescue her from marriage to prince humperdink and subsequent attempted suicide. Yesterday, she counted as the fourth time, since she could no more see herself living without Waverly as she could the girl's father.

 

Westley produced a box of ointments and potions he’d collected in his travels. Poisons were not the only thing he had studied in his time at sea. The previous Roberts had often sent his valet ashore to resupply the crew’s apothecary. And Westley had been sure to learn what he could about the exotic cures sold at each port of call.There was a tincture made from the root of a flower that grew on a volcanic island south of Japan. It could staunch wounds hidden beneath the skin, and numb any pain. A poultice of the same root could be applied to broken bones to speed healing, but Westley’s small bottle would provide hardly enough to coat one of the giant’s legs. He mixed a few drops of the tincture with flour and water to make a plaster, but he doubted it would do much good. And in his many travels, he had never heard of anyone recovering from a spinal injury.

 

“That means nothing,” he said to Buttercup, who expressed the same fear. “I’d never heard of anyone recovering from a state of ‘mostly dead’ 

 

As best they could tell, Fezzik had broken bones all over, but his spine had taken the worst of the fall. Westley assured her that it was was almost a mercy. If Fezzik had been able to move, and thrashed about, there would have been nothing they could do to keep him from injuring himself further. Worse, he'd have felt all of his injuries. Paralyzed as he was, he was numb to the worst of it. But short of a miracle, the giant would not walk, and would never fight, again.

 

Fezzik wavered between merciful sleep and fever dreams. Whenever he reached the edge of consciousness, he would cry out, sometimes for his mother, but most often for Inigo. Other times, he seemed to be reliving old fights, begging to be allowed to quit, to retire.

 

Waverly didn't really understand what was wrong with Fezzik, beyond that he was sick and needed his rest and could not play or hold her. She placed their favorite things in his bed; the stuffed bear he had made her and the dolls they invited to tea, and the book of poems Buttercup had bought him last Christmas that he treasured. She mimicked her mother, daubing his forehead with a wet cloth, making soothing noises when he cried out in his fever dreams. She whispered rhymes into his ears and combed his hair.

“Why doesn't uncle Inigo come?” she asked. Fezzik had been calling for the Spaniard again, softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

“He'll be back soon,” she said, more to sooth Fezzik than the girl. “He hasn't left you, not for good. He'll come for you.”

Buttercup had often wondered in the nights since Waverly's birth why it had been Fezzik who had been seized by the spirit. It seemed to her that if it had been the spirit of Permanent Affection or True Love , he might have select someone familiar the power of love, who already felt it residing within him. Sitting by Fezzik's side as he cried out for Inigo, she felt again that this must be true. If she were lying there, she knew for certain that she'd call for no one but her Westley.

"You need to bring Inigo Montoya back.” she told her husband. “He needs to be here now.”

 

“I can't leave you all unguarded. What if this creature returns.”

“Then you will come back in time and save us. You swore you would always come for me, that you would always keep our daughter safe. You swore by the love that binds us, and that's an oath I'll never doubt. But Fezzik needs Inigo now so you will bring him here. But before you do, you will deliver a letter for me.”

 

Buttercup went to her bedchamber and removed a plain wooden box from her bureau. Inside were her jewels, the ones she had been wearing the night she was to be married to Humperdink. She had not kept them out of any sentimental value, rather they were sort of a rainy day fund. She gave them some consideration, then selected a gold chain with a sapphire set amidst a dozen pearls. Then she sat down to pen a letter. Hopefully it would be enough to buy passage for two across the Atlantic, with a little left over for a miracle.


End file.
